THERE is a fine line between visionary and delusional. California's high-speed rail project whizzed across that line long ago and now is chugging toward the monorail station at Fantasyland.

The latest end-run tactic by the train's chief engineer, Gov. Jerry Brown, would have California's Legislature suspend its tough environmental laws so the state could put this pet project on the - pardon the pun - fast track.

Never mind that every independent analysis of the project has been highly critical of it.

Never mind that the High Speed Rail Authority's own peer review group said it was terribly flawed.

Never mind that the nonpartisan state Legislative Analyst's Office said even the new, new, new and improved incarnation still is not nearly "strong enough" and relies on "highly speculative" funding sources. For the uninitiated, that is bureaucratese for "not a snowball's chance in hell of finding the money to pay for it."

Never mind that the state's projected budget shortfall is now greater than the total budget of 39 states and that the debt service on the sale of these rail bonds would create another fiscal chasm that would have to be filled by another cockamamie budget gimmick.

Never mind that the new, new, new and improved plan bears so little resemblance to the bond sale plan that voters narrowly approved four years ago that going ahead with it now borders on ballot fraud.

Never mind that poll after poll - including a USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll released just last week - has shown that a strong, and growing, majority of voters clearly does not want the state to proceed with the project.

Nope, none of that matters. Casey Jones is at the controls of his legacy project, so reason and fiscal prudence have been abandoned on the far side of the turnstile.

It's easy to see how some voters might have been duped by what sounded like a cool project. First, the economic climate was quite different in 2008. Second, that relatively slim majority of voters actually believed the state's phony estimates of costs, ridership and services to be rendered.

But that was then and this is now.

The state's economy has been in the tank - dismally so - for four years. Also, shortly after the proposition passed, those original estimates somehow became anachronistic.

Oopsie, did we say $45 billion? We meant $98 billion. No, no, wait, $68 billion. Well, you know, around there somewhere. Did we say San Diego and Sacramento would be included in those numbers? Our bad, they're not.

How can anyone believe a word of what comes from the High-Speed Rail Authority now?

This is like a family that is deeply in debt choosing to finance a $120,000 new Tesla because it runs on electricity and will create a few jobs for a time at the Tesla plant. Besides, you know, the bank gave us a really good interest rate.

That makes no sense. Neither does going ahead with high-speed rail in California. The Legislature needs to stop it if the governor won't.